You may think it funny he didn't know me, but don't forget that I had been running for three years—that takes the fresh off a fellow; then, when I had the typhoid, my hair laid off, and was never reinstated, and when I got well, the whiskers—that had always refused to grow—came on with a rush, and they were red. And again, I had tried to switch with an old hook-motion in the night and forgot to take out the starting-bar, and she threw it at me, knocking out some teeth; and taking it altogether, I was a changed man.
"Where's John?" he said finally.
"Here," said I.
"No!"
"Yes."
He took my hand, and said, "John, I left all that was dear to me once, because I was jealous of you. I never knew how you came to have that money or why, and don't want to. Forgive me."
"That is the first time I ever heard of that," said "mother."
"I had it to buy this farm for you—a Christmas present—if you had waited," said I.
"That is the first time I ever heard of that," said he.